Articles
Understanding Your Dogs Temperament
By Lori Minardi
Head Trainer
Puppy-Wuppy Dog Training, LLC
www.puppy-wuppy.com
I received a recent phone call which has prompted me to write this long overdue article on “Understanding your dog’s temperament”.
Quite often the phone calls I receive pertain to advice on fixing problem behaviors. Sometimes these behaviors are genetic, sometimes environmental, or learned, and even with advanced dog training, they stem from too much compulsion or repetition in one area without keeping a balance in another area of training.
The idea of dog training is to evaluate the problem, find out how it originated, eliminate that reason, or recondition the dog in a different way. That way is dependent on the dog (and the handler) and how they perceive corrections, accept corrections, understand praise, eliminate praise, and work with the dog’s thresholds. (Thresholds are discussed in a previous article).
It is important to understand what type of dog you have. You must understand their breed, and what that brings to their temperament and motivation. It is most helpful to know the dog’s genetic line, as that has tremendous relevance on how the dog behaves, what motivates it, what it perceives, what drives it has inherited in its lineage. You should know the dog’s history. What happened to this dog in its prior home, how long it was with it’s mother as a pup, did the breeder socialize the dog, did the dog get socialized by it’s owner, was the dog introduced to noises, slippery floors, men, women etc., did something detrimental happen to the pup during it’s growth fear stage, has the pup been dominated by other dogs, or people….all of these factors contribution to your dogs temperament.
Therefore, knowing as much as possible, about what motivates your dog, what stresses your dog, and how far can you push the stressor before the dog breaks. Does the dog recover quickly from stress? All of this helps you live with your dog, train your dog, and understand your dog.
This knowledge helps YOU to read your dog and become a better dog owner and handler.
Most often, people fall into denial…Their dog is wonderful, it doesn’t have a temperament problem, it’s not a nerve bag, or it’s not fear aggressive. Just because it may have these problems, doesn’t mean it’s a bad dog.it just means you have to understand what you have. Denial does nothing but hurt the overall training and relationship with your dog.
If your dog is fear aggressive, don’t put him in situations that he has to fend for himself…If your dog is afraid of people, don’t make people approach the dog; have the dog approach the people. If your dog is afraid of thunderstorms, don’t cottle him or sit with him on the floor.
You must accept what your dog is, whether it shows good temperament, bad temperament, inadequate breeding or socialization, and work within those guidelines. You will not change your dog, but you will help your dog to overcome its issues.
Instead of understanding your dog, most people label their dogs, or put blame somewhere else. Aggression is a term used far too broadly, when it is usually the fear, dominance, flight, or defense that brings out the aggression, not that your dog is “aggressive”.
Unfortunately, there are a significant higher percentage of poorly bred and poor temperamented dogs than there are good. This is a reason you will find many trainers keeping young dogs till 1 yr old ….to see what qualities and insufficiencies they have. In part, this is what helps to keep dog trainers in business. Breeders should be more selective in their breeds. Just because a dog is a “Champion from great lines” doesn’t mean it’s going to have a great temperament. Chances are, it’s just going to look nice. Breeders should also be more responsible in their selection of owners. They should explain the dogs genetic abilities so that you help to eliminate the problem of wrong breed for wrong owner. Lastly, the owners should take note in the following:
Temperament is partly genetics, partly environmental. I like to say it is genetically based with environmental and human intervention. The human intervention is usually unconsciously tainted in a negative way. As such, these factors are detrimental to the behavior. Since the owner doesn’t see the problem, only the symptom, they try to correct in the wrong way; thereby, exasperating the problem. Don’t blame the dog…Understand your dog…and work with him/her.
Jan 04, 2012 | | Articles, News & Announcements, Training
Dogs Drives, Aggression, and Threshold:By Lori Minardi
www.puppy-wuppy.com
Puppy-Wuppy Dog Training
Drives are internal impulses that motivate the animal in a certain way to take some form of action.
Pack Drive: the desire to be with the master of the family. Control is achieved by the handler acting a s a superior of the dogs own pack and making a request to be subordinate. The dogs innate need for security of its position in a pack is triggered for this mode and is vital to the well balanced social dog.
Prey Drive: instinctive desire to chase anything that moves. This includes more than living animals such as squirrels, birds, deer…it includes balls, toys, frisbee’s and it is extremely useful in dog training. It incorporates the act of chasing, pouncing, biting, pulling, shaking and carrying.
Defensive Drive – reactive aggression due to a threat related to self preservation – related to flight instinct but the dog chooses to stand and fight. The harder the fight the more defense is shown.
Flight Instinct: instinctive response to a perceived threat in which the dog feels it must fee to preserve it’s safety. Dogs that have high levels of flights usually have weak nerves and generally have fears of loud noises, new enviroments, people etc. The dog must be trained to understand that flight is negative and working through it’s fear is obtainable and positive.
Active Aggression: directly related to Prey Drive. Usually seen in dogs with very high levels of prey drive. Dog actively demands it’s prey, either when it can’t get it or when the prey stops moving. Barking turns high pitched in order to panic the prey into moving so it can seize it.
Defensive Aggression: reactive aggression due to threat related to self preservation. This is also related to Flight instinct. The dog will react when fear is initiated and will show aggression to back off the fear. This is where you find fear biting dogs.
Social aggression: desire to establish pack dominance. This is a true form of aggression and is the most dangerous. This is a dog that will challenge most people it comes in contact with. It will not back down as if flight instinct. It is not limited to the owner if pack order has not been established. This should be addressed immediately.
Enviromental Aggression: – “territorial aggression” – Also known as resource guarding aggression. True form of aggression when dog guards objects and areas it perceives as it’s own. If not addressed immediately, the dog will become more confident with its guarding and take over the family/people/and home.
Displaced Aggression: Aggression that is misplaced or displaced. Commonly seen when dogs become overly excited with one another and get into a fight, or you are overly playing tug of war with your dog and your dog becomes frustrated and instinctively grabs your hand instead of the toy.
Displaced Fear: Typically used in the psychology of pet containment fencing. The dog receives a correction severe enough to be remembered and associates the place or object where he rec’d the correction. This behavior occurs a lot with the misuse of electric collars or you will see this when first putting on a prong collar on a sensitive dog.
Sharpness: to some this is used to describe a nervy, spooky, or jumpy dog. In hunting dogs, it is used to describe the level of intensity and attitude they kill their respective prey. In old style sport, it is used to refer to dogs that become aggressive without much provocation.
Threshold: Threshold is the stimulus of the drive. This mean’s how easy or difficult it is to trigger the drive and the intensity with which the dog carries out the action. A dog has reached its drive threshold just before the dog moves into defense and avoidance, or just before the intensity level changes within the drive. An example, how far is the dog willing to go to overcome its fear before it reverts back to its fear based tendencies. As such you have low thresholds and high thresholds. A low threshold of defense is where the dog begins to understand its being threatened and begins to bark with seriousness. The upper threshold is where the dog is stressed to the point of avoidance.
These are a few common descriptions when working with your dog in which you describe “what makes them tick”. There are slight variations depending on each persons terminology but the concepts are the same, started to help trainers understand how dog think, learn, cope, and adapt while we constantly add more demands on their training programs.
Jul 12, 2011 | | Articles, General
• Vitamin A – helps dryness, hardening and itching of the skin. Also protects against infection and toxic chemicals.
• Vitamin B1 – Thiamine – helps dogs become more alert and intelligent, also helps with fleas and other parasites.
• Vitamin B2 – Riboflavin – helps protein and fat metabolism; also helps prevent cataracts in the eyes.
• Vitamin B3 – helps convert food to energy, helps protein and fat metabolism. Also controls convulsive seizures in dogs.
• Vitamin B5 - Pantothenic Acid – is an anti-stress vitamin because it’s required for producing good antibodies, helps longevity. Dogs deficient in Vitamin B5 can’t fight infection.
• Vitamin B6 - Pyridoxine – It is required in the utilization of some minerals for a healthy nervous system, red blood cell production, good brain function, and a strong immune system. Anemia, poor growth, artery disease, kidney stones are all signs of deficiency.
• Vitamin B9 – Folic Acid – Dogs need folic acid during pregnancy and to help build the immune system. Signs of deficiency in dogs include: erratic appetite, retarded weight gain, watery secretion from the eyes, and decreased antibody response to microorganisms.
• Vitamin B12 - Cobalamin – Dry skin and coat.. This vitamin prevents nerve damage, aids fertility, and promotes normal growth and development. Also helps in the digestion of food.
• Vitamin C – helps to fight scurvy, less likely to develop hip dysplasia, spinal myelopathy, ruptured discs, viral disease, skin problem and common bacterial infections.
• Vitamin D – key in calcium and phosphorus metabolism to help with strong bones and teeth. Sunlight stimulates dogs to generate vitamin D.
• Vitamin E – helps boost the efficiency of the heart and circulation system. Promotes dilation of the small blood vessels, increasing the supply of oxygen to all of the body. Vitamin E helps to improve your dogs immune system, muscle power, and stamina. It also protects against air pollution and has been know to rejuvenate ailing and tired dogs.
• Vitamin H – Biotin – helps reduce the incidence of skin disorders. Assists the thyroid and adrenal glands and aids the nervous system. Also helps in the prevention of coprophagy (the animal eating its own excrement).
• Vitamin K – has a special role in the clotting of blood. Often used after a dog has eaten rat poison!
May 04, 2011 | | Articles, Nutrition
We will be starting our Outdoor Agility Classes in April 2011 – Weekends, 10am and 11am.
Please contact me for more information.
L...@puppy-wuppy.com
973-214-5979
Mar 11, 2011 | | News & Announcements, Training
Basking Ridge NJ Obedience Classes will be starting in Mid April. Weeknights. $25/Hr.
Location: Basking Ridge Dog Park – OUTSIDE the dog park entrance, by the ball fields. South Maple Ave. Basking Ridge, NJ
Class is held Tuesday’s at 6pm for Intermediate / Advance and there will be a 7pm beginner class if I have enough interest.
First Class begins April 5th.
Please contact me for more information.
L...@puppy-wuppy.com or 973-214-5979
Mar 11, 2011 | | News & Announcements, Training
The value of prey!
Dogs with well developed prey can be a pleasure to train; they have motivation, attitude, energy, drive, endurance, and the ability to combat stress at higher levels. They excel in dog sports such as agility, flyball, obedience, schutzhund, SAR, and tracking.
All dogs are born with a certain level of prey drive. The challenge we face as owners and trainers is to develop and cultivate that drive through usable vices such as games, tug, keep away, interaction, encouragement, obsessiveness, building blocks of prey behaviors and fetch.
The purpose of the blog is not to get into the mechanics of prey drive but to help you awaken and understand that tu and fetch games can serve as both stress relief and high valued rewards, when trained right, to help the dog achieve their training goals. Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to play tug or fetch with their dogs properly, a simple game, yet complex in it’s mechanics in logic to a dog. This, thereby, creates tension and stress for the dog; thus, creating the opposite goal.
Please contact me for more information on how to bring out your dogs natural prey drives to motivate your dogs training circurcium or to just better bond with your dog.
Jan 13, 2011 | | Articles, Training
Rented indoor training hall for those of you who would like to come.
Class is at 10am. January 9, 2011
Location is at Golden Rule School for Dogs, Route 206, Andover, NJ
Contact me for more information.
973-214-5979
Dec 10, 2010 | | News & Announcements, Training